


The Scent of Violets

by thimbleful



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post Season 7, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 06:24:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14889327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimbleful/pseuds/thimbleful
Summary: Jon's yet to give her the gift waiting in his pocket. He should wait until they’re alone, Sansa and him. Alone, for the first time in moons. Before he left, it was a typical ending to their day--the two of them unwinding in front of the fire, fabric and a needle in her lap, Longclaw and a whetstone in his--so why does the thought fill him with unease?





	The Scent of Violets

**Author's Note:**

> prompt by shinynewrevulsions : “Jon returns back to WF, Subtextual Jonsa where Jon lets Sansa know that he was thinking about her in the south, and vice versa. Maybe something involving the Ned cloak?”
> 
> note: this wasn’t exactly what the prompt asked for, and it's not that subtle lol, but it’s where my inspiration took me. i hope that’s all right. thanks for the prompt!

In a pause between murmured words, in the middle of a story of Braavos and Jaqen and losing her sight, Arya drifted off to sleep. Now she snores softly in a chair, legs slung over the armrest, while their little brother blinks slowly, tiredly, as he stares into the hearth. Jon’s own eyes feel heavy as well, and even though Sansa sits with her back straight and her eyes wide open, she’s stifled five-six yawns by now, all hidden behind both closed lips and a curled hand.

Midnight’s inching closer, and Bran's said he needs a word alone with Jon, and yet none of them is willing to end this evening. For the first time in years, they're sharing a moment of peace and quiet in Jon’s chambers, over a plate of honey cakes, a flagon of wine, and a pitcher of far better ale than the Night’s Watch could ever produce. This time, when Sansa stole a sip from Jon’s tankard, she neither coughed nor grimaced. Still, she's stuck to her wine, nursing it primly. Even now, long after she filled the cup, she still has enough to bring it to her lips for another tiny sip. And every time she puts the cup back on the table, her hair falls forward like a curtain of red silk that gleams in the light of the fire. That attracts his gaze.

While he was a prisoner on a stormy island of black rock, that color pulled at his attention, made him whirl around with his heart in his throat, for half a heartbeat expecting something impossible. But it was only ever the flickering flame of a torch, or the shine of copper veins in rough stone walls, or even the blazing spectacle of the sun sinking into the ocean.

With a graceful flick of her wrist, Sansa tosses her hair back over her shoulder--and that flash of color in his peripheral still draws him in. Not like a moth to a flame, precisely, for that kind of pull is dangerous and consuming and--

Jon shifts in his seat and looks away.

He’s yet to give her the gift waiting in his pocket, could’ve done it a hundred times by now, but that wouldn’t be right, would it? Once he learned that Arya and Bran were back, there was no time to make more. He should wait until they’re alone, Sansa and him. Alone, for the first time in moons. Before he left, it was a typical ending to their day--the two of them unwinding in front of the fire, fabric and a needle in her lap, Longclaw and a whetstone in his--so why does the thought fill him with unease?

He wets his dry mouth with a generous gulp of ale. Perhaps he shouldn’t give it to her at all, this pathetic thing he wasted many evenings on, adding more and more to the pile of discarded attempts until he gave up and deemed the latest version good enough. But is it? She's used to pretty things, loves pretty things...

Sansa stifles another yawn and Jon’s body responds, echoes, his mouth opening wide as he yawns as well. It breaks the spell, it seems. In an instant, she’s on her feet, waking Arya and grabbing the handles of Bran’s rolling chair.

“We should let Jon get his rest,” she says.

“No, I…” He’s on his feet as well. The gift feels like a lump of iron in his pocket and he's being an idiot. It's just Sansa. He can give her a bleeding gift. “I wanted a word. In private.”

When her eyes widen in alarm, he winces at his clumsy phrasing. Before he’s had a chance to clarify, however, Bran speaks: “I would like that too. Remember?”

“Aye," Jon says, even though it had slipped his mind completely. "Can it wait? Just a moment.”

All evening, Bran’s been most quiet of all. Quiet and passive with a dull look in his eyes, even as he listened to his siblings’ stories, even as he shared some of his own. Now, though, when his gaze travels between Jon and Sansa, it’s sharp, calculating, disconcerting.

“A short moment,” Bran says.

Jon nods, and after Arya mumbles a sleepy good night, she and Bran leave the room.

Jon closes the door behind them, stomach feeling oddly light.

When he turns around, he finds Sansa’s standing in the middle of his chambers, between the chairs and his bed, watching him warily. She looks like a woman expecting bad news, and he could deliver them, has plenty of them, all the things he’s felt forced to do lately, things he kept to himself this evening because he doesn’t know where to start or how to explain it all. He’s barely even given himself time to process them or think about the consequences.

He hasn’t allowed himself to imagine the look on her face when she finds out.

His hands are clammy; he wipes them on his breeches.

Sansa’s brow furrows. “What is it?”

“I have something for you.”

The words sound as if he dragged them over a gravel road and he doesn’t understand it, doesn’t understand why his mouth is still so dry or the room hotter than the Glass Gardens. It’s just Sansa. Clearing his throat, he takes a determined step closer and slips his hand into the pocket hiding the gift.

“It’s a…” When his fingers close around it, around all his mistakes, the little courage he mustered leaves him. “Never mind.” He forces his lips to curve upward. “It was nothing. Good night, Sansa.”

Her lips curve upward too, just a touch. “What it is? Tell me.”

He swallows down his nervousness and pulls his hand out, displays the pale wooden figurine in the hollow of his palm. At first, Sansa stills, staring at it with round eyes, but then she reaches for it. As she turns it over in her hands, he knows she studies all the flaws, finds all the ways in which he’s failed with the likeness. That one leg that got shorter than the rest. The wonky ears. The too thin tail. How he couldn’t get the darker streaks in the sand-colored wood to fit well enough for the markings. And he didn’t have any varnish, either, just a fruit knife and Davos’ guidance and many long, lonely hours in a room he couldn’t technically call a cell.

The crackle of the fire booms in the quiet chambers, like the whip of lightning before it cracks the sky, and Sansa’s not saying a bleeding thing. He can’t even hear her breathing.

“It’s Lady. Or supposed to be. There wasn’t much to do. At Dragonstone. We had our meals in our room. Sometimes we went on walks, Davos and I. And one day we came across some driftwood and I… Uh, Davos said he could teach me how to whittle. To pass the time. And I didn’t know what to make, but I was thinking of you and--”

He stops his rambling, because she stills again. The figurine of Lady now lies in the cradle of Sansa’s hands, long enough from nose to tail that it fills the space there. She still hasn’t looked up at him, and his stomach twists uncomfortably.

He was thinking of her, always thinking of her, but how can he say that without sounding as if…

The cloak's to blame, really. The cloak and its scent.

After he was named king, she shut herself in her chambers and refused to come out. She hated him for stealing the title that should’ve been hers, he thought. She won the Battle of the Bastards, not him; she avenged the Red Wedding, not him. But the next day, before breakfast, she knocked on his door and he learned she didn’t hate him at all. In her arms lay a cloak, fur-lined and sewn from finer fabric than his old one. She didn't have to say she stayed up all night to finish it. The dark circles under her eyes told him that.

“You can’t wear this old thing anymore,” she said, tugging at the cloak she sewed for him at Castle Black. One she’d created from some old bedspread or whatever material she’d been able to scrounge up in a place where no one had the privilege of caring about their appearance. “You’re a king now. You must look it.”

And then she cloaked him with that new gift, wrapping him in her scent and her support, and he's wrapped himself in it ever since, seeking comfort in its cocoon, in its familiar smell, even as the Southern sun bore down on his winter body, and he was boiling in his wool and fur and leather.

The faintest trace of violets still lingers on the fur.

She always smells like violets, Sansa, like the early signs of spring.

A cloak for a king, sewn by her own gifted hand, that's what she gave him, and she did so with a smile on her lips, pride shining in her eyes. Not the slightest hint of jealousy or scorn. And this is what he offers in return. Not a beautiful necklace or a pretty silk dress or a silverbrush for her hair, but a figurine of someone who was stolen from her, whittled by the clumsy hands of a man who stole her kingdom too, and handed it to a stranger.

How could she feel anything but loss from looking at that ugly thing?

She must hate it. Her silence tells him as much.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m an idiot. I don’t know what i was thinking.”

He reaches for the figurine to pocket it or throw it in the fire or  _anything_ , but as his fingers close around it, Sansa’s fingers close around his wrist. And then they stand there, their hands entangled around the present.

“I…” She shakes her head. “I haven’t received a gift in…”

She licks her lips and swallows, mouth twitching the way hers does when she’s fighting back tears. The way it did when they sat in front of the fire at the Wall, talking about the horrors they’d endured, and anger poured into his fists like lava, filling him with the need to crush that monster Ramsay until he was nothing but pulp.

“I don’t remember how long,” she says in a small, broken voice. “At least not without an ulterior motive.”

Her eyelashes flutter and a tear slips down her cheek, shining like molten gold in the firelight. He would cup her cheek and brush away that tear with the pad of his thumb, but their hands still form an intricate knot he has no desire to untangle.

"Do you-do you like it? It's all right if you don't. I'll just throw it--"

“It’s mine. You gave it to me and you can’t take it back.”

She pulls the figurine from his grasp and clutches it against her chest, while still holding his wrist with her other hand. Then the grip loosens and he expects her to slip away, to leave him there, bereft and bewildered, but instead he feels her fingers trailing along the back of his hand. On an instinct he doesn’t care to examine, he turns his and their palms meet, their fingers kissing each other’s wrists, resting against the pulse points. He tries to ignore how his pulse races, keeping his eyes firmly on their hands instead of looking up at her face.

Ink stains her pale skin. He can so clearly picture her by her desk, deciphering his raven scrolls before writing him innocuous replies that had words of warning and wisdom hidden between the lines. Letters he read over and over until the parchment crumbled and the words were seared into his mind.

Much too soon, Sansa does step back, sliding her hand along his until their fingertips meet, the tips of her nails sharp against his skin.

“I missed you too,” she whispers and then she leaves him.

And he does feel bereft, and that does leave him bewildered, and so he stands there, all alone in the middle of his chambers, between the chairs and the bed, breathing in the lingering scent of violets while his aching heart struggles to find an appropriate rhythm.

_It's just Sansa_ , he tells it. _It's just Sansa._

It's the ale and the wine and the lack of sleep. It's his conscience and his worrying about the future.

It's knowing Bran's still up, waiting for him.

His little brother who now sees everything.

Jon sighs and drags a hand over his mouth, wiping away the evidence of something that’s never happened.

At least Bran's news will be a welcome distraction. His mother. That's what Bran will talk about, isn't it? Finally news that won't complicate matters. A name, perhaps a story, nothing more. An lifelong question answered. Some well-needed closure.

As soon as Jon's heart has stopped racing.

He sinks down in a chair and lets his eyes drift closed, calming himself with slow, measured breaths.

It takes a long while for the scent of violets to vanish.


End file.
